How Wine Giants are Hurting Wine

A few weeks ago, we learned about research that was being done in South America on what we described as wine fingerprints. Attentive readers might recall that part of the fingerprint of a wine or a vineyard was the winemaker themselves. And, of course, even if there is just one person labeled the winemaker, there are usually many who are part of the process that begins with planting the grapes and ends with the wine being bottled. All contribute to the uniqueness of the wine.

This morning, I was saddened by a series of articles that I saw all telling the same story. Wine giant, E&J Gallo, very shortly after purchasing Sonoma-based winery Clos du Bois, laid off 32 of the 37 employees including all the winemakers. Legitimately, they said that sales were down. But, it didn't seem to matter to them why sales were down. The first step was to reduce costs and then later, they plan to figure out what went wrong. The winery workers said that previous owner, Constellation Brands, had ceased investing in Clos du Bois and with their desire being to sell the brand rather than grow the brand of course Clos du Bois had declining sales.

What's going to happen now? With different and a far smaller number of people involved in the process, the fingerprint of the wines will change. And, with less volume of wine being produced, at the same time, I expect prices per bottle to increase. What began as a winery started by two friends in the 1970s and had a history of producing inexpensive yet good quality wines is now just a profit center or at least the desire for one.

On the one hand, the capitalist in me says I am okay with this. On the other hand, though, this whole concept of buying a brand, changing the product, and eliminating most of the jobs is not. 

Large alcoholic beverage companies are coming in left and right essentially as private equity and offering huge sums for brand names. It's part of the wine business where being able to offer a portfolio to distributors gives them greater leverage. While they would like to produce better wine rather than worse, their focus does not seem to be on the wine itself. It's not about the pride in the wine. This bothers me, and when I have a choice of either of two bottles to purchase where one is still owned by a family and the other by a mega-brand, I will buy the family wine.

I think back to my early days of visiting wineries. One in particular was family-owned and while not a family member, the winemaker was like part of the family. It was a good wine, not great, but very enjoyable. But, the proprietors took great pride in what they were doing. They made good money, but strove to know their wine family and to provide them quality wines at fair prices. The wines had a certain character -- that fingerprint.

The proprietors were a husband and wife. Sadly, the wife died and having had an offer he couldn't refuse thrown at him, the proprietor sold the winery, but actually kept the brand. We were automatically enrolled in the buyer's wine club meaning that we got far more expensive wines from a number of wineries. That didn't last long; there was no personal touch to me.  

This has been part of my migration from American, particularly California, wines to, in many cases, small, family-owned wineries from seemingly obscure places. While they make the wine to earn money, they put their own love into the wine.

Sad that this trend is leaving us here.